CORE PRINCIPLE OF LASTING DEMOCRACY #9

Lasting Democracy has a proper understanding of censorship and propaganda and uses intellectual honesty when judging the use of either. No government can avoid the use of propaganda to promote desired ideas and attitudes in the population (e.g. honest use promoting the true idea smoking is harmful; dishonest use promoting the false idea that Jews or any other group of humans are less human than others). No government can avoid the use of censorship to reduce undesirable ideas and attitudes in the population (e.g. honest use discouraging child pornography and anti-Semitism which harms humans; dishonest use censoring verifiably true facts which do not support totalitarian-oriented governments and their unscientific ideologies). Healthy democratic governments will use propaganda and censorship honestly, to promote verifiable truths that positively support democracy-grounding Equal Human Rights for All Humans and to discourage harmful untruths which are against established facts of Science or History and which do damage to human societies. Totalitarian States and unhealthy democratic governments which are unwittingly totalitarian-oriented make dishonest use of propaganda and censorship to promote totalitarian ideologies based on errors/untruths and to hide verifiably true facts that expose their errors.  Intellectually honest use of propaganda and censorship supports genuine education for positive effect in human society, while intellectually dishonest use is a tool of the current ‘Creeping Totalitarianism’ promoted by officially Pro-Choice political parties to support the totalitarian legal killing of humans and to support other unscientific ideologies. 

In this author’s country Pro-Choice ‘Creeping Totalitarian’ political parties in power have used dishonest propaganda indoctrination in school “Sex Ed” curricula which promotes legal human-killing by abortion (which ignores the established scientific reality of human life); and promotes other unscientific ideologies which ignore established Science to the detriment of humans. The same Pro-Choice political parties have passed intellectually dishonest censorship laws and policies taking away normal Democratic Freedoms Speech, Expression, Assembly, Conscience and Religion, particularly of Traditional Hippocratic, Pro-Life doctors who don't kill and peaceful Pro-Life Human Rights advocates.  Citizens can be arrested and jailed even for speaking verifiable scientific and medical and historical facts which do not support Pro-Choice and other unscientific government ideologies. This author can be arrested and jailed for speaking verifiable scientific and medical and historical facts about abortion where it is most meaningful to do so (in support of democracy-grounding Equal Human Rights for All Humans). This author can be arrested for this under laws passed by officially Pro-Choice political parties in power, who cannot defend their legal human-killing by abortion in any intellectually honest way, so they make intellectually dishonest and totalitarian use of censorship instead.  This author gave a eulogy at the funeral of the elderly man in the above newspaper photo, who died while awaiting unjust trial after being arrested twice, for being a "known Pro-Lifer" carrying signs reading "Freedom of Expression and Religion. No Censorship" and "God Save Our Charter Rights."  Technically, he did not even break the new totalitarian law against Pro-Life Freedom of Speech and Expression, since he left his usual Pro-Life signs, such as "Choose God's Love; Don't Kill Your Baby Today," at home, instead holding signs promoting the democratic freedom of speech which the totalitarian law takes away.  He was arrested and charged anyway, (and later another elderly Pro-Lifer was arrested for holding a sign reading "Freedom of Speech: Cornerstone of Western Civilization") because any country that has so badly lost its grip on the (Pro-Life) Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy that it (or its provinces) would pass such a totalitarian law against Free Speech of the (Pro-Life) Foundational Principles of Human Rights and Democracy in the first place, cannot be expected to only arrest people who actually break laws.  Such a country is well on the way to becoming a totalitarian Police State, and we can expect examples like this of the totalitarian politics of intimidation.  Totalitarian-style intimidation which has worked:  the only reason there have not been more arrests than there have been under this totalitarian law against Free Speech is because most Pro-Life Human Rights Advocates have since conceded their usual democratic freedoms to the totalitarian-oriented government and limited their protests in support of Equal Human Rights for All Humans to where the government allows them, out of fear of police; out of fear of arrest and jail time if they actually dare to exercise normal democratic freedoms by doing peaceful Pro-Life Human Rights advocacy where it is most pertinent, across the street from human-killing abortion clinics.  Since all the most pertinent facts of Human Rights History, Science, and Logic support the conclusion that Pro-Life = Pro-Democracy and Pro-Choice = Pro-Totalitarianism, as demonstrated in this author’s books, ending Free Speech and ending Free Democracy through intellectually dishonest, totalitarian uses of propaganda and censorship really is the only way officially Pro-Choice political parties in power, who wittingly or unwittingly follow the evil totalitarian Soviet and Nazi precedents of legal human-killing by abortion (and euthanasia), can keep their totalitarian and bigoted legal human-killing abortion legal long term (anyone who disagrees with this conclusion is invited to take The Intellectual Honesty Challenge). 

Further Reflection

Propaganda and Censorship – Every government uses Propaganda to promote or “propagate” attitudes in the population considered desirable – whether based on lies/errors for negative societal effect (like Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda) or based on truths for positive effect (like anti-smoking and anti-racist campaign propaganda); Every government uses censorship to reduce attitudes in the population considered undesirable – whether based on lies/errors for negative societal effect (like Soviet censorship of news) or based on truths for positive effect (like censoring child pornography and anti-Semitic hate literature). So, the question is not whether or not to use propaganda and censorship (which cannot be avoided) but how to use them (based on truths not falsehoods/errors) for the maximum benefit to human individuals and human societies. Just which current Western propaganda should continue because it is based on truths which genuinely benefit humans and which should be ended or altered because it is based on ignorance and errors which are genuinely harming humans and undermining our free and democratic way of life? Just precisely where should the line be drawn between what is not censored and what is censored for the protection of human individuals and for the protection of human rights and democratic freedoms? 

Both words (propaganda and censorship)have come to often have negative connotations because of high-profile negative uses like the Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda which promoted or “propagated” hatred of Jews based on lies against Jewish human dignity, which unscientifically asserted or implied that Jews were “subhuman” or “less than human” to justify killing Jewish humans in the millions. The Soviet Communist censorship of news, omitting or misreporting facts to tailor public opinion to be favorable to the oppressive Soviet regime, went so far as to for over 50 years deny the Holodomor Genocide perpetrated on this writer’s ethnic group, where the Soviet government similarly killed Ukrainian humans in the millions in 1932-33 (until the Soviet regime ended and its secret documents were declassified).

But both propaganda and censorship in themselves are morally neutral and each can be used in either negative or positive ways for either negative or positive purposes, and as suggested, it is completely impossible not to use them. Anti-smoking campaigns or bicycle helmet safety are classic positive uses of propaganda, specifically promoting or propagating the desired attitude in the general population (often aimed particularly at young people who are vulnerable to becoming addicted to smoking or to having bicycle accidents). In this case the propaganda is positive in both implementation and purpose. The honest facts of the harm of smoking is presented, not dishonest nor misrepresented “facts,” and the purpose of the propaganda is for the genuine good health and benefit of those who are influenced by it. Legitimate uses of propaganda should always be intellectually honest and so should always be based on “propagating” true facts, and for the good of those influenced by it and society at large. Propaganda should never be used with bad will or to make others fear, or even hate themselves or hate others.  Propaganda should never be based on lies or false science which contradicts well-established principles of science, or it will be without logic or truth, even if supposedly for the “benefit” of society (Hitler and his Propaganda Minister Goebbels also thought they were “benefiting” society by promoting anti-Semitism, and had also justified this in their minds with the false, pseudo-science of Eugenics).

The Pro-Life position and mindset is based on truths of Human Right History, Logic and Science (like that preborn humans are humans; and that killing humans is wrong). The Pro-Choice position and mindset is based on the denial of scientific facts, like when they claim preborn humans are not humans (and so do not have Human Rights), and uses this denial of scientific fact to justify harming people, killing the most vulnerable human babies, still in the womb, just like each one of us when we were their age.

Some Pro-Choice political parties in power are now using negative propaganda to propagate unscientific ideology (regarding abortion or otherwise), while at the same time using negative censorship to censor scientific facts. To the unscientific Pro-Choice mentality which denies preborn humans are humans, Science itself is a crime when it does not support a Pro-Choice political party’s various unscientific ideologies (Pro-Choice and otherwise). In this author’s country, there are now a number of laws under which people can be arrested just for speaking or expressing on signs scientific facts which do not support the Pro-Choice and other ideologies which are being pushed on them by a political party’s unscientific statements and claims.

Many governments legitimately use propaganda campaigns to warn pregnant mothers of human babies to not drink alcohol nor smoke while pregnant, because it can harm their human baby. This is based on accurate science, and the message of the propaganda, if heeded, will genuinely benefit the precious human child and mother for the rest of their lives. If these governments were genuinely concerned for the lives and well-being of human mothers and their babies, however, they should be warning mothers with posters of the genuine dangers to their precious human child that abortion will kill their child (and increase the mothers’ chance of various health problems, as has been amply proven by many scientific studies). This selective use of propaganda reveals a “Jekyll and Hyde” government, which sometimes acts as if all humans are equally precious and should be protected from harm; and sometimes acts as if NOT all humans are equally precious, and some humans can be killed when deemed inconvenient to the State or inconvenient to the individual. Like in any totalitarian State.  Such inconsistency in government on the most basic of questions: do humans have inherent Human Rights or not?, is inherently unstable and very dangerous. LASTING democracies must consistently affirm and defend Equal Human Rights for All Humans in their laws and policies, and in any use of either propaganda or censorship.